Spurs hope to contain Houston’s Harden

Danny Green said at Friday’s shootaround that he will get the first crack at what will undoubtedly be a tag-team effort to defend Houston guard James Harden tonight .

Harden, after three seasons as an understudy in Oklahoma City, is thriving in his first season as the focal point, averaging 25.8 points per game to rank fourth behind only Kobe Bryant (30.2 ppg), Carmelo Anthony (28.5 ppg) and Kevin Durant (28.5 ppg).

“There’s a reason why he’s pretty good at what he does,” Green said. “We’re going to try to maintain him as much as possible, force him to do other things and make his teammates play well…which is going to be tough to do.”

A high-efficiency shooter who gets to the foul line and excels in the pick-and-roll, Harden presents an array of challenges. The Spurs were generally able to answer them in the previous meeting, in which Harden scored a game-high 29 points but none over the final 20 minutes of a 114-92 blowout on Dec. 7.

But as Green generously noted, Harden did not play in the fourth quarter of that game as the Spurs pulled away.

“That could be a factor,” he joked. “That would be the easiest way to defend anybody, any All-Star pretty much. Get a big lead and hope they don’t play them anymore.”

Barring that, the Spurs would be best served to isolate Harden as much as possible. He shoots only 26.2 percent in those situations, compared to 53.8 percent in pick-and-rolls and 46.7 percent on spot-ups.

But it’s not enough just to limit Harden as a scorer. He’s also one of the better playmakers in the NBA, averaging 5.2 assists per game to rank first among shooting guards. That facet is even more effective now that his supporting cast, particularly Jeremy Lin, has shown signs of life during the five-game win streak the Rockets carry into tonight’s game.

“They’re still learning,” Green said, “but they’ve figured each other out a little bit better chemistry-wise. As you see, their role players are shooting the ball very well, they’re scoring a lot of baskets, everybody’s putting up big numbers. That’s the reason they’re playing well.”